what Frank is listening to #230 – THE DILLARDS – Wheatstraw Suite – (Elektra) – 1968
Of course I know who The Dillards are but I don't have much by them, just tracks on some compilation album and one of their 70s albums. The reason is because you don't find them much in op shops here in Australia. Even in the States they were reasonably marginal to mainstream pop music. Only one of their 12 or so albums charted in the Top 200.
The truth is that even the well versed music listener would have trouble naming three Dillards songs. Can you?
But, if sales were the only yardstick to a musics worth then there would be much underappreciated and much that is total crap being heralded. So let us champion those the masses have missed though caution is needed …let us not loosely praise unknown music … it's unknown for a reason.
A band like The Dillards share a similar place (not in sound) to the Velvet Underground on the East Coast. No sales, limited popularity but every musician that saw them was influenced by them. The only difference (apart from music styles obviously) is that the Velvet Underground cult really only kicked in, in the 70s whereas The Dillards impact on other musicians was almost immediate.
You may not like country rock (which is a pity as there is much to enjoy in it) but The Dillards, The Byrds and The International Submarine Band (the last two with Gram Parsons) really set the template for all that followed in that genre.
Having said that I cannot envisage The Dillards then or now being as hip as The Byrds, regardless of the quality of the music.They clearly did not look as "cool" as The Byrds. Music is great but the look and cultural cache are under appreciated in "serious music". Only in pop do they understand the true worth of image.
I digress.
Back in what Frank is listening to #187 I said (google country rock on this blog and you can find me nattering on):
"Country Rock" is one of those terms that always divides listeners. Country rock is essentially country music played by rock bands, though some are more convincing and authentic than others. Slackers will say that Gram Parsons started this particular hybrid but that's just a fallacy. He may have been one of its early enthusiasts, it's icon and superstar, and deservedly so, but people had been mixing country and rock long before him. The Byrds, solo Gene Clark, Rick Nelson and solo Michael Nesmith (including some Monkees tracks) were all having a go in the mid to late 60s. And what is half of Elvis' Sun Sessions from 1954/55 but country rock. Further, he would in the late 50s record Hank Williams and Hank Snow and then return with a vengeance to Southern gothic country with "From Elvis In Memphis" in 1969. In the 70s he would cover many country songs and his fine "concept" album "Elvis Country (I'm 10,000 Years Old)" from 1971 is central to the genre. So, bully for him.
I suppose the difference though is that Parsons and the others consciously fused their love of country and rock whereas Elvis was acting more on instinct. They also added youthful defiance, drugs and lots of long hair to the mix ..something Elvis (or Jerry lee Lewis who travelled much the same country ground as Elvis) wasn't about to do. All of the first wave of rockers from the south were in country bands early on or had country in their sound at times – (especially) Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Eddie Cochran, Charlie Feathers, Conway Twitty and Bill Haley (though from the Midwest he started out as a country act).
I suppose the difference though is that Parsons and the others consciously fused their love of country and rock whereas Elvis was acting more on instinct. They also added youthful defiance, drugs and lots of long hair to the mix ..something Elvis (or Jerry lee Lewis who travelled much the same country ground as Elvis) wasn't about to do. All of the first wave of rockers from the south were in country bands early on or had country in their sound at times – (especially) Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Eddie Cochran, Charlie Feathers, Conway Twitty and Bill Haley (though from the Midwest he started out as a country act).
The Dillards approached country rock from a slightly different angle … they were a country band (specifically bluegrass) who started playing rock and not vice versa. And interestingly they were pushing the envelope as early as 1964 … they "plugged in" and went electric on their second album which was heresy to the bluegrass establishment at the time.
This, their 4th album, was their first proper country rock album and came out the same year as The Byrds "Sweethearts of the Rodeo" and The International Submarine Bands "Safe as Houses". Interestingly, as befits a band that started off as a country bluegrass band, country enthusiasts prefer to call the music "progressive bluegrass" emphasising bluegrass country with rock overtones rather than rock with country overtones.
It's a subtle difference but one that makes a world of difference in country / pop / rock fusion music, especially later when everyone started jumping on the bandwagon.
Interestingly the album is co-produced by guitarist and vocalist Rodney Dillard. Evidence that he really was in command and clearly knew where he wanted this music to go. (His brother Doug had left the band by this stage)
Tracks (best in italics)
- I'll Fly Away – (Albert E. Brumley) – what a way to start a pop album with a snippet of a white gospel song from the 30s (one of the most well known of all gospel songs) with beautiful harmonies.
- Nobody Knows –(Mitch Jayne, Rodney Dillard) – A perfect song …This is the Byrds go country (like they did on "Sweethearts of the Rodeo") but here there is more country than pop or rock.
Nobody knows
Nobody ever knows
No one knows when things will stay the same
She’s in love with you
And you know you love her too
There will come a time when she won’t know your name
There’s a lot of things to die every time the day goes by
There’s a lot of things people cannot explain
You can be in love today
I mean every word you say
Knowing when tomorrow comes a word you say will be a lie
Nobody ever knows
No one knows when things will stay the same
She’s in love with you
And you know you love her too
There will come a time when she won’t know your name
There’s a lot of things to die every time the day goes by
There’s a lot of things people cannot explain
You can be in love today
I mean every word you say
Knowing when tomorrow comes a word you say will be a lie
- Hey Boys –(The Dillards) – again, quite country bluegrass…and again the harmonies and banjo do it for me.
- The Biggest Whatever –(Mitch Jayne, Rodney Dillard) – a country rocker and not dissimilar to what Glen Campbell was doing at the time (when he wasn't doing Jimmy Webb)
- Listen to the Sound –(Herb Pedersen, Mitch Jayne) – a folk song
- Little Pete– (Herb Pedersen) – a country song and morality tale
- Reason to Believe – (Tim Hardin) – a singer songwriter song by the great Tim Hardin (his most well known song which has been covered by everyone – I'm partial to the Bobby Darin from 1966). A great song with harmonies and a lyric which is poignant:
If I gave you time to change my mind
I'd find a way to leave the past behind
Knowing that you lied straight faced while I cried
Still I look to find a reason to believe
I'd find a way to leave the past behind
Knowing that you lied straight faced while I cried
Still I look to find a reason to believe
- Single Saddle– (Arthur Altman, Hal David) – starts off with a bass line like a blues but it's a cowboy song, It is co-written by Burt Bacharach co-writer Hal David and originally done by Vaughn Monroe (I think) in the 40s.
- I've Just Seen a Face – (John Lennon, Paul McCartney) – you don't hear the Beatles done like this often …bluegrass country style. "The Charles River Valley Boys" had done an album of Beatles bluegrass style in 1966. And they had done this song. I suspect The Dillards are covering them rather than The Beatles per se …but who knows. I have that Charles River Valley Boys LP in the pile behind me somewhere but I haven't given it a listen yet. Still, regardless of inspiration this is a good song and a good version.
- Lemon Chimes –(Bill Martin, Rodney Dillard) – a slow country folk ballad.
- Don't You Cry– (The Dillards) – what starts off as a bluegrass hoedown goes pop mid way through with some pop orchestral instrumentation. But it works.
- Bending the Strings – (Allen Shelton) – an instrumental right out of the Flatt & Scruggs songbook.
- She Sang Hymns Out of Tune– (Jesse Lee Kincaid) – a 60s pop musician with a country and folk bent, Jesse Lee Kincaid was in the Rising Sons with Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal. He is largely forgotten which is a pity because he wrote some nifty songs. This song had actually been covered the year before by Nilsson on his Pandemonium Shadow Show album. Whether the Dillards got it there or from the original I don't know. It's a classy tune though
And…
A excellent album. Seminal. A keeper.
Chart Action
US
Singles
Singles
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Album
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Album
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England
Singles
Singles
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Album
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Sounds
Nobody Knows
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfUpQsGCInE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfUpQsGCInE
and attached
I've Just Seen a Face
attached
She Sang Hymns Out of Tune
Others
with John Hartford
Review
Bio
Other
Website
Trivia
- Though The Dillards were a tremendous influence on the main core of musicians who started Southern California's country rock movement in the late 1960s (which further extended from that genre into today's country music), their biggest claim to fame is playing the fictional bluegrass band "The Darlings" on The Andy Griffith Show. This was a recurring role and the Dillards were led by veteran character actor Denver Pyle as their father and jug player, Briscoe Darling. Maggie Peterson played Charlene Darling, their sister and the focus for the attentions of character Ernest T. Bass, played by Howard Morris. The appearances of the Dillards as the Darlings ran between 1963 and 1966. In 1986, the Dillards reprised the role in the reunion show Return to Mayberry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dillards
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